Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad on Thursday said his followers would teach the BJP government a lesson for attacking him, adding that many like him would be born if he was killed.

Unidentified assailants had fired on Azad in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoband on Wednesday evening. The Dalit leader had escaped a fatal injury as a bullet grazed the skin on the left side of his abdomen.

“Some people want to disturb me because they fear my growing political power. They don’t want me to go with someone else; they want me to go with them. But they have not understood me and my followers. I warn them not to mess with us. The Bahujan Samaj (Dalit) is a fertile community. Many Chandrashekhars would be born if I were eliminated,” Azad told reporters at Saharanpur district hospital on Thursday afternoon.

“You are attacking me when the state government and the chief minister are yours. We will teach a lesson to the BJP government,” the leader of the Bhim Army, a social organisation, and the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram), a political outfit, added without substantiating his allegation.

The Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram) is working in coordination with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. Azad had recently said his party would field candidates in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Wrestlers Sakshi Malik and Bajrang Punia visited the hospital to see Azad.

“Whoever attacked Azad should be arrested immediately and the country must know the reason behind the crime. He stood by us against the central government and we want to show our solidarity with him,” Malik told reporters after meeting Azad.

Punia said: “This attack shouldn’t be viewed as the manifestation of a caste conflict. It is an act of cowardice and the criminals should be behind bars soon.”

Azad had supported the wrestlers’ movement against outgoing Wrestling Federation of India chief and BJP MP Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused of sexually abusing female grapplers.